Mix a severe budget shortfall with a dash of politics one week before a heated election and you have the perfect recipe for controversy and that is exactly what was on the menu at the Lamar County commission meeting July 13.

I fear for any employee of the county right now. The wrong look at your superior will be enough to get you cut. That much budget cut can only mean people losing their job. Also, on a side note, Matthews needs to work on this wording.

"If the citizens don't like the way I use my authority." Someone needs to step off his high horse. If you acknowledge that people don't like the way you're running things then fix the problem. Don't be a blood sucking rodent thats going to just ride it out until election time. We got enough of those in politics as it it.

You want major problems, give Brown and others the authority that they want to hire and fire. Does not work, never will work. You can not serve so many masters. You need one person in charge of county employees, not every Tom , Dick and Harry. Discipline will be out the window and you will a game of favorites by every Comm. No way to run a county and I wouldn't blame Patterson if he walked away from it. Some of these Comm couldn't run a goat herding contest, much less a full county operation.

One solution to the problem can be made Tuesday, July 20 by voting Brown out of office. He is an egotistical control freak that wants total power. Mr. Glass, if you are fortunate enough to oust Mr. Brown, please don't act as he does or you will be a one-term commissioner.

Don’t employees get jerked around enough without being subject to the whelms of the constant changing political landscape. There must be a buffer between county employees and the commission chair. The commission chair is already powerful enough that it runs unopposed.

Nothing against firefighters, but i think we could cut the paid fire fighter jobs. this county ran for years with just volunteers. it will run with volunteers today! That is what made our county fd so great is that volunteers gave their time.

where would you " tighten up"the fire dept exactly, please be specific.where is the hydrant with no caps located,city or county?in the city,you could call the light and water dept.in the county you cuold call the lamar county water authority.the grove st. property no longer belongs to the county.the new station was approved a long time ago and is needed to continue improving iso ratings.for all the people who say we need a fully paid fire dept should consider the costof such an undertaking,we are talking millions of dollars added to the budget,not only in salaries and benefits, but also more in equipment and training.where does this money come from?

The Sheriff's department doesnt even have 25 deputies to start with. Rumor is that now the night shift will have one deputy. One deputy for 200+ miles of county. As soon as something happens, and someone is hurt or killed due to lack of police, then you'll do something. I suggest everyone buy guns and be prepared to take care of yourself. The county doesn't have the money to help protect you anymore.

OK you've demonstrated the ability to make an accusation with the cowardly hesitation to omit your name. Now why don’t you present the details to substantiate your view with a name just in case someone might want to discuss the issue with you? However, if all you have is a bad case of mouth diarrhea and a fear to confront your opposition on individual issues with a real name; just stay under the rock.

There is already enough uninformed voters pushing buttons that don’t have a clue of who they are voting for and what they stand for.

The thing that really concerns me, you state what doesn't work but not what does? The powers in place now does not for sure. We are as a county at the present time in a financial mess. Why? Look to the one's that make the purchase, sign checks and ask for no input.
I would much rather have folks in "control" that tell us what they're doing. Much different than what's happening now.
What the problem with that?

Cut out all the crap the chamber is doing. That will cut out overtime for the police and city crews. I know these festivals cant be making money for this town. Say NO to the Heritage festival...Buggy Days? Do we even make money off of that event???

Almost everybody knows who GMAC is. He used to comment under his name but I think he was given the GMAC name by Mr. Morgan and he adopted it. He also comments under the initials GM. Either way its a whole lot better than anonymous.

get rid of the to highly paid people that run the courthouse annex. we used to pay only 45K a year for the admin. job and now we pay 75 to 80K a year for him to micro manage the whole county he is a hired person we did not vote him in office fire him and vote the others out and start over before the county is in such debt we have to close it up.

Are you stupid? Unless you live under a rock you know all the other counties in this state are in the same shape we are and some are worse. We are in a recession, headed for a depression. I didn't see your name on the ballots anywhere "anonymous" - I'll bet you can get the county straightened out --- right.

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